The Big Decision

And the winner is ... the Sea of Cortez! We will be heading up into the Sea for a couple of months this spring and summer, and we are so looking forward to it. While I've appreciated all this dock time - what with the C-section recovery and the new baby and Vlad working - it will certainly be nice to head back out into the wide open world and actually do some traveling again. Plus, we will get to see a completely different landscape from the usual lush tropical vista. Think fewer palm trees and more cacti.

As for the Pacific, well, it's not going anywhere. We seriously considered just going for it, but Vlad was concerned about getting our boat ready while also working on other people's. There just wasn't enough time. And after watching all of our fellow puddle jumpers, I'm kind of glad we didn't go the super stressful route. We also really want to explore the Sea of Cortez with its small, dusty towns and bare mountains and clear, fish-filled water. If we crossed the Pacific now, we would probably never get come back to see this particular spot.

On the down side, we have heard horror stories about the heat, but we will see how it goes. We will, however, escape at least one of the hellish summer months with a trip to Guadalajara because as it turns out we have to get Jari's birth certificate fixed there. (See our latest paperwork drama here.) They can't amend it in PV. I'm guessing this has to do with the fact that his birth certificate is actually in a file in a stack in the specific office where we registered him, and the whole thing is strictly analog. On a similar note, we did get the baby's American passport (yay!!) last week, and we didn't even have to call our congressmen. The paperwork drama is almost finished.

But our travels with our new crew have just begun.